Ecoembes, Iberia, Gate Gourmet, Ferrovial Servicios and the ESCI-UPF business school have taken recycling to the skies with the LIFE Zero Cabin Waste project, in which passenger cabin catering waste is sorted on board Iberia flights for recycling on the ground.
The various partners in the initiative this morning announced the initial results of the project which began with waste analysis and a new catering trolley design in 2016, and was fully implemented on all Iberia’s domestic and European flights in June, 2019. In full-year 2019 a total of 2,253 tonnes of used food and drink containers were recycled, representing a 42% increase from the amount recycled before the project began.
Compartmentalised trolleys now facilitate the separation of plastic, metal, and composite containers; paper and cardboard; and all other waste as it is collected. More than 4,000 employees received instruction and environmental awareness training for the project.
The Zero Cabin Waste project also called for a reduction of the total amount of waste generated on flights, including the elimination of the print media formerly offered to passengers, and of plastic packaging for earphones, blankets, etc. All these measures brought a 15% weight reduction and 5,000 tonnes less waste in 2019 alone.
Patricia Zamora, who manages the Zero Cabin Waste project for Ecoembes, the Spanish non-profit body responsible for recycling consumer waste, commented: “Since Ecoembes was launched more than 20 years ago, citizens have formed the recycling habit, depositing household waste in the proper containers. But that’s not enough, and we want to take this practice to all venues in which we spend time away from home and where we also generate waste. This project is another advance on this front”.
Iberia’s Sustainability Manager, Teresa Parejo, said, “The separation of cabin wastes is one of the most important projects reflecting our commitment to sustainable development via responsible production and consumption”.
Alba Bala, responsible for the waste management line of the UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change of ESCI-UPF, stressed that “the measures of prevention and improvement of waste selection in origin have avoided the emission of almost 3,300 tons of CO2 throughout the 3 years of project”.
Joaquin Mateo, Compliance Director for Gategourmet Spain catering firm, said, “The Zero Cabin Waste project doesn’t end in 2020. Our aim now is to extend the good practices we’ve developed in these three years to the more than 200 Gategroup production centres on four continents”.
Gonzalo Cañete, Regional Manager for Ferrovial Servicios, commented “at our company we remain committed to the Zero Cabin Waste project for managing and extracting value from airline industry waste”.
Sorted cabin wastes are collected at Gate Gourmet’s Madrid Airport installation by the Ferrovial Servicios company, working under Ecoembes’ supervision. The entire project is subject to evaluation by the UNESCO Life Cycle and Climate Change unit ESCI-UPF.
Ferrovial Servicios is now at work on an alternative organic waste treatment for organic cabin wastes originating outside the EU, whose treatment is not currently permitted under European law.
